Giles Coren: Garbage Human, Fatphobe and, Horrifyingly, Father

Giles Coren writes a column for Esquire about fatherhood. His most recent piece is titled: “I Don’t Care What My Son Becomes… As Long As He Isn’t Overweight.” I thought I couldn’t be shocked by fatphobia anymore but I was wrong.

Before we get into his advocacy of child abuse and killing fat people, let’s take a look at his kid, who he calls “morbidly obese”

I’d also like to be clear that this isn’t Giles first day as a human-shaped piece of garbage, having previously published a piece (also for his Esquire column) where he said it was ok if his daughter didn’t do well in school because she could just marry a banker.

Finally, the quotes from his piece will be indented. All are offensive, many cross the line into blatant, violent, hate speech, including discussion of burning. They may be extremely triggering. If you want to skip this post entirely, I don’t blame you. If you want to skip the quotes you will still get the gist of the post without reading all of his bigoted drivel.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re looking at that picture of my son and you’re thinking, “Fat little bastard”. Sure, he’s cute. He’s got a nice little face. He looks a bit of an idiot because his mum took him for a haircut on the morning of the photo shoot (completely failing to grasp the first rule of shoots which is, “never have a haircut closer than two weeks before, or you’re going to look like a chump”) but on the whole he is a good-looking boy.

Wrong right off the bat there Giles. What I’m thinking is “Please, please, please don’t let this article be about a dad who is taking out his size bigotry on his four year old son.”

Except he’s fat. Arse on him like Vanessa Feltz and a full frontal presentation at bath time that puts one in mind of a Gavin and Stacey-era James Corden or a well-waxed Christopher Biggins, all giggly on too much rosé.

At this point (while I know full well that regardless of his kid’s size it’s wildly inappropriate for Giles to think of him this way, or to involve so many other people in his blatant size bias) I am compelled to look again at the picture. While it would be perfectly fine if his kid fit this description, he absolutely does not. I’m forced to assume that Giles wanted to splash around in a pool of fat hate and decided to facilitate that by pretending that his kid is fat. Regardless, there is no size his kid could be that would possibly justify fat-shaming him.

It’s all very well to say that it’s puppy fat. It’s all very well to pinch his cheeks and go, “Who’s a cheeky chubby-chops? Awww, wittle fatty boom-boom…” and nuzzle your face in his tummy and blow raspberries and feel how they ripple through him like a fart in the bath, but what if… IT DOESN’T GO AWAY?

If it doesn’t go away, then you will have a fat kid. If he doesn’t have a growth spurt, then you’ll have a short kid. The thing about kids growing up is that they grow up into adults of all kinds of shapes and sizes and none of that requires ALL CAPS HISTRIONICS because all bodies are good bodies.

You know what I’m saying? Adele’s parents probably thought it was puppy fat too. And Paul Hollywood’s. And Russell Grant’s. No doubt Diane Abbott’s family assumed that she would change shape when she was out of nappies. But the change never came.

Giles seems really, really angry that fat people are allowed to exist and he continues to try to involve as many of them as possible in his bigoted farce of an article.

It’s reasonable to assume that the parents took their eyes off the ball, let their porky pups feast on a shitty diet and do fuck-all exercise into adolescence and now look at them: ostensibly successful, yes, but laughable to behold with their untucked shirts and stretched, shiny faces.

It’s not reasonable – it’s fatphobia and stereotyping. People, including young people, come in lots of different sizes for lots of different reason. People of all sizes eat whatever Giles’ definition of a “shitty diet” is, and people of all sizes choose not to exercise. People’s choices and sizes are none of Giles’ business. People of all sizes wear untucked shirts and have shiny faces. Giles, needs to get ahold of himself, he has completely failed at keeping his blatant bigotry subtle while pretending that he cares about his son.

The sort of people you want to follow down the street playing “Flight of the Valkyries” on a tuba.

No dude, YOU want to follow them down the street playing the tuba because you are an absolute garbage human. I continue to be absolutely stunned that Esquire would allow a piece that is nothing but hate speech to be published, especially under the guise of how to be a father.

And I’m worried as fuck that my little Sam could go the same way. Not only because of how it will ruin his life but because of how it will reflect on me.

I don’t give a single solitary fuck about Giles. I’m worried that Sam “could go the same way” because his father is a raving fatphobe who will undoubtedly do unimaginable damage to him every day until he can escape. (Pssst, Sam, find the Fat Acceptance Movement, a lot of us grew up with parents who were worse than useless as well, we’ve got your back!)

For while obesity as a demographic phenomenon can be classed as disease, epidemic, socio-economic tragedy, whatever, on an individual, case-by-case basis, each actual fat person is blatantly just a badly brought-up, greedy little son of a bitch committing the unforgivable sin of gluttony in a world where there is not enough food to go round.

Being fat doesn’t ruin your life. The thing that ruins your life is this kind of (fact-free) fatphobia. “Obesity” isn’t a disease, it’s not an epidemic, or a tragedy – it’s just a ratio of weight and height. Granted, a ratio onto which some people (many for profit, others for attention, others because they are simply bigots) have heaped tons of negativity.

Also be clear that there is plenty of food to go around. Hunger is a complex issue that has to do with things like capitalism, nationalism, racism and more. And even if it wasn’t indisputable fact that there are thin people who eat far more than fat people, it would still have literally NOTHING to do with fat people existing. This is just another way that people who want to be bigots try to justify their bigotry, and using people who are starving to do it is particularly despicable.

I’d kill them all and render them down for candles.

Let’s be absolutely clear what he is saying here. He is saying that, given a chance, he would kill all fat people, then burn us. It’s not funny, it’s not cute, it’s a call for genocide. (People will immediately suggest that I’m going to far in saying this, those people are a part of the problem. “I’d kill them all” is not an unclear statement.) Anytime you say that everyone who shares a single characteristic should be killed, you are going down a very bad road. I would love to know the name of the editor at Esquire UK who read that sentence and said “Sure, kill all the fat and burn them, that’s totally reasonable. Leave that in.”) Here, again, is the link for their complaints section.

It may sound harsh but how else are we to recoup the tens of billions of pounds they cost the NHS and the wider economy each year with treatment needed, working days lost, hospital beds broken, chairs smashed to splinters and good workers accidentally killed when fat people sit on them?

Here Giles seems to be trying to make another wild stab at justifying his bigotry (won’t somebody please think of the tax dollars?!) But he’s so overcome with his desire to say horrible things about fat people that he can’t even keep it together for a single paragraph.

It is no business of mine what Sam does with his life. I’m not ultimately bothered whether he’s rich or poor, artist or scientist, crackhead or alcoholic, married or unmarried, gay or straight… I don’t care if he runs every letter of the LGBTQI spectrum to the end and back, and comes home with a cock in every hole and says he’s changed his name to Rita. As long as he isn’t fat.

The first sentence may be the only correct and appropriate thing he says in the entire piece. The rest is obviously total bullshit. Now might be a good time to remember that someday, who knows how soon, Sam (who might end up being fat) will read this. The idea that he would be more upset if his son had a larger body that if he was addicted to crack is obviously incredibly troubling, but also troubling is – again – Giles’ tendency to feel free to use some marginalized groups in his quest to oppress fat people. Here he uses people who struggle with addiction as well as queer and trans people showing that while he’s is definitely a fatphobe, he’s certainly not a single issue bigot.

My daughter I am less worried about. Possibly because she is as skinny as a cricket. But if at some point in adult life she pulls the ripcord, well, there are uses for a fat woman. She can be kind of cosy. Whereas a fat man has nothing to offer but his ability to consume. To bring forth upon the world a fat son is indeed a shame before God.

Not satisfied at simply inappropriately (some might say abusively) using his son for this ridiculous exercise, Giles brings his daughter into it and makes the transition to blatant and disgusting misogyny. Unfortunately he doesn’t even have enough new ideas to support the entire diatribe, so we’re back to the old “fat people eat a lot” crap. Even if this was true it would be a tired argument at this point but, again, it’s simply not. And once again I’d remind you that his son will someday learn just how conditional his father’s love for him really is. So while I’m angry at Giles for being such a blatant and vocal bigot, I’m terrified for Sam growing up with an abusive, misogynist, fatphobe for a father, and I would support child services if they removed the kids from the home.

But it’s hard to know what to do about it. I’d put him on a strict diet and buy him a hamster wheel but my wife is not the moral absolutist that I am and she is the one who does the Ocado orders. And cooks most of the food. But is a bit of a lazy tart. Sorry — a busy working mother with many other important things to think about, who knows her way down the path of least resistance.

So Giles also doesn’t respect his wife. This is my not-surprised face. In good news, it looks like Sam may have one decent parent.

So the boy eats a lot of white carbs, sugary cereals, pizza, fried chicken… much like a poor child in America’s morbidly obese central heartlands. Which is why Sam looks like one of them. He doesn’t like fruit or veg and none of us can be arsed to force them down him. But he does like a tub of ice cream and a long run at the television of an afternoon. And on even the shortest car journey he expects his iPad and a sack of Kettle chips.

So he gets them. And I say, “Can’t you give him a carrot instead?”

And my wife says, “If you want him to eat carrots, you try feeding him a fucking carrot!”

So I let it go. And I feel ashamed. But then I see these middle-class kids with their weekday screen bans and their steamed fish and vegetables and no chocolate or sweeties and 10 hours’ oboe practice a day and it makes me want to puke. And I find that I’m kind of proud of our somewhat slutty stance on it all, or lack of one. Otherwise, I suppose, I wouldn’t be admitting to it here.

This is quite the juxtaposition of bigotry – marginalizing an entire swatch of America, middle-class kids, and those who play the oboe is not beginner level oppression. Giles is a piece of shit, but at least he’s good at it? Let’s be clear – giving kids (of all sizes) lots of food choices and helping them to develop a healthy relationship with food is a positive thing, giving kids food and then shaming them for eating it is just fucked up and is basically trying to give your kid an eating disorder.

I try to look on the positive side. Such as the possibility that having a fat adult son — who I will unquestionably continue to love with all my heart no matter what — might help me to lay aside my prejudices regarding fat people and bring me to a more respectful place vis-à-vis the fat and ever fatter future we unquestionably face as a race. And that being grotesquely flabby, sweaty, knock-kneed and impotent would mean that Sam was unlikely ever to have a girlfriend or any mates or be invited to parties, so he’d have more time to work at becoming a nuclear physicist or getting filthy rich and supporting me in my old age.

And then other times I think, “I’d best get the chubby fucker’s jaw wired before he’s old enough to stop me.”

Classic abuser technique. First he spends the entire article being clear that if his son is fat he would be perfectly happy to kill him and burn him, that he would rather he struggle with a drug addiction than be large, that he would consider him to be a “shame before god,” and that his son would (continue to) be the recipient of every piece of fatphobia with which Giles’ little essay is dripping. Then Giles does the whole “I still love you, maybe I can be better” rap. But, as we’ve learned, Giles can’t hold it together for long, so he throws in a few more stereotypes and then leaves a little reminder that he is capable of physical abuse.

My heart goes out to Sam, I hope that he can somehow escape this situation clinging to a healthy relationships with food and his body, and I also hope that he can avoid becoming the super bigot that his father is modeling to him and anyone else who will read his work.

As far as Giles goes, I think we all know where he should go:

Red box around a picture of a trash can with the text “Moved to Trash”

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Book and Dance Class Sale! I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

This thing reads so much like a shitpost I’m wondering why Esquire paid for it when material of its kind is so widely available for free, so I’ll just point this out:

He calls fat people greedy, but the theme of his article boils down to “we need to kill/remove all the fat people, even if they end up including my son, so I don’t have to share with them. The stuff I perceive them as having is supposed to be for ME!”

I’ve noticed a lot of bigots seem to define “greedy” as “having stuff I believe that I, as the Superior Creature, am entitled to first dibs on.”

I signed the petition immediately…the thing is, he’s aiming for humor—I think it’s kind of supposed to be one of those ‘my-real-inner-feelings’ versus ‘my-intellectual-studied-reaction” things, but it’s disgusting. He hates and objectifies fat people, and that is his thesis.

It isn’t funny.

I’m glad he at least says he would love his son if he did become fat toward the end, but he was using him as an excuse for a diatribe of prejudicial hate, which is massively fucked up. He needs a fat son to jolt him into reality, but there’s no way I can wish him on the son.

Unfortunately this is an example of “shock journalism,” which often takes the form of supposedly cleverly expressed hate or dumping on someone or some people. Think “Alex Jones” with a slightly larger vocabulary.

The problem is, of course, that we have no way of knowing if Giles actually believes what he has written.

If he really does, I would say to his wife: divorce him. Now. Don’t wait another day. Take your beautiful kids with you so they don’t have to grow up with this incredible abuse. Fat shaming. Wife shaming. Class shaming.

Even if he doesn’t, it is not cute. It is abominable. As is Giles.

Oh, hell, Giles’s wife, divorce him anyway. For your sake. For the sake of your kids. How can you tell if he’s lying?

“This article oozes with violence and hatred. The author says every abusive thing he can about fat people, even calling for killing all of them and rendering them into candles. He also says he will hate and ostracize his son if he is fat and jokes about wiring his son’s jaw shut. This piece is abusive to fat people and the author’s child. Please remove it and fire this purveyor of hate speech.”

Very frightening. And not really meant to be “funny”. When they say they hate you and want to kill you, they mean it. Never doubt that. There is serious mental disturbance in anyone who thinks this way, but the publishers are the ones I blame. It isn’t funny or thought provoking or meant to be an example of something wry it is a less than tacit acknowledgment of the bias and arrogance of the thought behind “Our World must Stay Our World!” that magazines like Esquire have been blathering for ages. If you look who is Not in the magazine it tells you all you need to know. It is for wealthy wasp men of age with a semi coherence of social issues and minor interest in literature. We were never welcome there. They don’t really want to jog the mind or create dialogue, they want to offend and bring up sagging ratings, which like most magazines started dying off in the nineties. The fact Mr. Giles has to pull in every fat being he has ever had cross his eye-balls shows he is so upset he can’t even stay on topic. But I suppose: “Oh God don’t let my kid be fat.” does not an article make. How much would they pay for, “If my son turns out to be gay I’ll beat him to death with his dick, or “If he marries a black woman I’ll disown him and their micengenious offspring?”
It’s always there. It is probably good to have the examples of the hate we face in black and white so when people get up in a snit and say it is all in our heads, this meanness and discrimination we face every day, we can show them, no, it isn’t.

Burn em down and bag the ashes. You know who did that, Dahmer and Hitler. But this isn’t really bad, cause it is just fat people and they ask for it right…?

I bailed on Twitter earlier this month. It’s a dump owned by an amoral jackass. But I did click on Mr. Wonderful’s feed and was somewhat heartened to see a few people give him the kind of attention he deserves most. 😀

Firing him isn’t good enough. What he did is a crime in the UK, and he should be prosecuted. Esquire UK has probably broken British law as well. Whether he thinks his writing is amusing is irrelevant–it’s a violation of law even if he thinks he is a brilliant comedian.